Wednesday, 8 May 2013

Twenty-nine years KMFDM have been going, twenty-nine. For a bulk of that it has been the joke that
their name stands for “Kill Motherfucking Depeche Mode” and it’s took them
until 2013 to put that into a song! ‘Kunst’,
the title and opening track, is full of self-references and singing in the
third person with an irritably catchy chorus of “KMFDM kill mother fucking Depeche Mode”.

Yep, it’s another bout of ten stompy tracks from the German industrial
pioneers, they’ve been around long enough that you know what to expect – but ‘Kunst’
is certainly an enjoyable opus.

Always ones to keep it topical, ‘Quake’ takes on a look at
refugees, whereas ‘Pussy Riot’ is self-explanatory and ‘Next Big Thing’ draws
parallels with the music industry.

Musically, their change has been slow rather than
progressive – this hasn’t moved on much from the last few albums, stompy beats,
punky electronics, primary focus on the rhythm of the track, dual female and
male vocals – so it’s a safe bet. If you
like KMFDM, you will probably like ‘Kunst’, just don’t expect anything fresh or
cutting edge.

However, the strength here is they haven’t needed to put out
something fresh or cutting edge, they know how to put together a decent tune
and that’s what you’ve got here. Ten decent tunes. No big hits, no real
sloppy parts, just ten decent tunes.

Listening to the album you can often hear hints from bands
as diverse as Angelspit or Inertia, this being down to the mix and type of
bands they’ve influenced.